Tiamat

Depiction of a horned serpent on a Babylonian cylinder seal

Tiamat ( Akkadian tiām (a) tu (m) / tâm (a) tu (m) , also tiāmtu , tâmtu or tâmatu ) is a goddess in the Babylonian religion . She embodies the salt water and forms the counterpart to her husband Abzu , the fresh water .

Tiamat's husband is Abzu, their children include Laḫmu , Laḫamu and Kingu . According to Thorkild Jacobsen , the name Tiamat is derived from Akkadian ti'amtum (status absolutum), later tâmtum , "sea". There is also a relationship to the Hebrew təhôm, among others .

In the Enūma eliš, the young gods Tiamat and Abzu wake up with their noise and goings-on, and Abzu wants to destroy the troublemakers, to Tiamat's displeasure. After Abzu has been killed by the god Ea / Enki , Tiamat swears vengeance and allies with her son Kingu, whom she gives great power. Together with an army of monsters, she wants to fight her children's children, but they send them Marduk , Ea's son , to meet her . He kills Kingu and also defeats Tiamat in a duel, splits them and forms heaven and earth from the halves.

The Omorka of Berossus , whose Chaldean name he gives as thamte , the sea, is often equated with Tiamat.

literature

Helmut Freydank u. a .: Lexicon of the Old Orient. Egypt * India * China * Western Asia . VMA-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 3-928127-40-3 .
Brigitte Groneberg : The gods of the Mesopotamia. Cults, myths, epics . Artemis & Winkler, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-7608-2306-8 .
Florian Illerhaus: Marduk's fight against the chaos monster Tiamat. Representations of the Babylonian creation myth and the variety of interpretations. Munich. 2011. ISBN 3-640-80470-8
Thorkild Jacobsen : The Battle between Marduk and Tiamat . In: Journal of the American Oriental Society 88/1, 1968, 104-108.

Web links

Manuel Ceccarelli: Tiamtu / Tiamat In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (eds.): The scientific biblical lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c Manuel Ceccarelli: Tiamat. In: Wissenschaftliches Bibellexikon . 2016, accessed June 28, 2018 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Michaela Bauks: Urmeer. In: Wissenschaftliches Bibellexikon. 2010, accessed June 28, 2018 .
^ ^A ^b Thorkild Jacobsen 1968, The Battle between Marduk and Tiamat. Journal of the American Oriental Society 88/1, 105
^ Thorkild Jacobsen 1968, The Battle between Marduk and Tiamat. Journal of the American Oriental Society 88/1, note 1, p. 105

[tiamat-wbl-1] Manuel Ceccarelli: Tiamat. In: Wissenschaftliches Bibellexikon . 2016, accessed June 28, 2018 .

[tehom-wbl-2] Michaela Bauks: Urmeer. In: Wissenschaftliches Bibellexikon. 2010, accessed June 28, 2018 .

[ReferenceA-3] A ^b Thorkild Jacobsen 1968, The Battle between Marduk and Tiamat. Journal of the American Oriental Society 88/1, 105

[4] Thorkild Jacobsen 1968, The Battle between Marduk and Tiamat. Journal of the American Oriental Society 88/1, note 1, p. 105